


Before It's Too Late

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: Buried Alive, F/M, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9400616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry ;)





	

Dr. Reid,

If you want to see your precious Y/N alive again, you will follow my instructions to the letter. First, inform your team. They don’t know your little secret do they? I think it’s time they know. Second, figure out who I am. You’re the smart one aren’t you? Third, and finally, use your precious profiling skills to find out where I am keeping her. 

Signed,

Your Very Own Unsub  
Spencer had found the note taped to his door this morning as he left for work. Immediately, he drove the speed of light to Y/N’s apartment, hoping beyond hope that this was just a horrible trick and not real life, but when he got there, her apartment looked torn apart - like she hadn’t gone without a fight. 

Upon realizing she was gone, he ran to the car, put his siren on and drove to work. His breath was catching in his throat as he ran up the stairs, not trusting the elevator to get him to the team on time today. “Help!” he yelled as he ran into Hotch’s office. “Please help me.” He held out the note for him to read.

As his eyes ran over the words, Hotch swallowed hard. “You’re seeing someone and she’s been taken?” he asked, knowing by the look in Spencer’s eyes that he might have to relive what Hotch went through with Hayley, and what Spencer had already gone through with Maeve. It was bad enough he’d lost the love of his life once, he wasn’t about to let Spencer lose another woman he loved.

“Yes,” Spencer replied. “Her name is Y/N. We’ve been seeing each other for nearly a year and this was taped to my door this morning. I went to her apartment figuring it might just have been a random, horrible prank, but her apartment looks destroyed. She didn’t do without a fight. Hotch…I have to find her. I can’t lose her too.”

The youngest agent had already been through too much. The first love of his life had been shot in front of his eyes; he couldn’t survive another one being taken from him. “Okay, I know it’s difficult, but keep your wits about you. Y/N needs your head clear. Let’s go brief the team.”

————–

“We have a case,” Hotch said sharply. “Reid…go ahead.”

Spencer took a second to compose himself before speaking. “For the past year, I’ve been seeing a woman named Y/N. This morning, I had a note taped to my door that said she’d been taken. She’s not in her apartment. She’s not at work. This is real.” His lip quivered as a tear fell from his eye. “I can’t do this again. I can’t lose her too. Please…help me find her.”

What affected one, affected them all. JJ’s eyes had welled with tears. Morgan was in a state of shock. Hotch was pissed. Blake, Garcia, Rossi…everyone was stunned. “Kid, what did the letter say? We need to start there.”

Spencer recounted the words by memory. He assumed that even if they did find Y/N alive, those words would remain etched in his brain for the rest of his life. “Okay,” JJ started, grabbing the sides of her head as if to focus herself, “They said ‘you’re the smart one aren’t you,’ and signed off ‘your very own unsub.’ You have to know this person.”

“I can’t think of anyone who would do this,” Spencer said shakily. “I went through some hell as a kid, but who would do this? I-I-I don’t know…”

“Focus,” Rossi said, pointing his finger at Spencer. “Think, they also said ‘your precious profiling skills,’ so this has to be someone more recent - someone who knows you became a profiler. Maybe someone you were in the Academy with? Maybe you made it in and they didn’t? Maybe they did and they wanted your job here, so they’re resentful because of that? Think, Reid.”

Spencer crouched down on the floor, his head in his hands as he tried to block out every noise that was invading his brain to try and figure out who would’ve taken her. As he thought back to his very brief time in the Academy (he was plucked basically out of obscurity and only went through Academy formalities), he tried to remember who he was with. Two names came to mind.

“Nathan Hall and Stan Giamusso,” he blurted out. “Hall didn’t make it in, but he wasn’t looking to join the BAU. Giamusso made it in, and he was looking for a position here.”

“He works in White Collar crimes now, right?” Rossi asked. “Do you remember either holding a grudge against you?”

Spencer groaned. “They both hated me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Hall was angry that he didn’t make it, but he didn’t seem to be mad at me. He never blamed me for not getting in, he blamed the Bureau.”

“And Giamusso?” Hotch asked.

“He loathed me,” Spencer said, immediately looking out the window to see if he saw any sign of him. Even if he was in today, looking for him was futile; Spencer wouldn’t know, because White Collar was located on another floor. “He scored extremely low on one of the more advanced profiling tests, which was why he was passed over and I got the job.”

“So, it has to be him then, right?” Morgan asked. “You’re sure there isn’t anyone else that might want revenge on you? It has to be someone you knew.”

“No,” Spencer said, going through the rolodex in his mind, searching for any other name that might be pertinent to the case. “There’s no one else.”

“Giamusso is in today,” Hotch said. “I saw him this morning on the elevator.”

“What time did he get in?” JJ asked, her head snapping toward Hotch in surprise. “Hotch, what time did you get in?”

It seemed to dawn on him that Giamusso was off schedule. “I came in even earlier than usual to get paperwork done for the last case. I was here at 5:30.”

“Why would someone in White Collar be here that early? It’s a nine-to-five job,” Blake said. “And Hotch, you said he’s here today?”

He nodded in Spencer’s direction. “Then we need to talk to him,” Spencer replied.

“You aren’t talking to anyone,” Hotch said. “You’re too involved.”

“Hotch…”

Without saying another word, Hotch briskly returned to his office to summon Giamusso up from two floors down.

————–

As Spencer stared at the other agent through the glass, it took ever bit of strength he had not to burst through and strangle him to death, or at least to go in there and ask questions himself. Hotch had assigned Blake to do the questioning.

“Do you know Dr. Reid?” she asked, watching as the other agent snarled slightly.

“Yes, I know him. He got my job,” Giamusso replied with disdain. 

Blake continued interrogating him, question after question making the heat rise in Giamusso’s face. He gave no indication of where he might have taken Y/N, but everyone on the team was certain he was the one that had her. “You’ll be staying her for the foreseeable future,” Blake said as she stood up to leave. “At least 72 hours.”

“She doesn’t have 72 hours,” he said, looking at his watch, the left corner of his lip curling upward. “By my watch, she probably has about six hours. Hurry, or she may end up like the last one.”

Spencer froze in place as Blake walked out of the interrogation room, trying her best not to give Giamusso any indication that she’d been affected. “We only have six hours,” he panicked. “How are we supposed to find her in six hours?”

“We have to think,” JJ said, looking toward the interrogation room in disgust. “This is all about you. He wants you to suffer. So he’s going to have her in a place that’s important to you.”

“Where?” he practically screamed. “Not my apartment because I was already there. Not hers. I have a couple of places I frequent but most of them are too public for him to hold someone captive.”

“Give me anything and I’ll check it out,” Garcia said, getting ready to jot down places she could check out. Spencer rattled off as many places he frequented in the past year as humanly possible. How could he be sure she was even still alive? He was acting as if it was a game. Maybe the game was watching him collapse?

————–

With only two hours left on the clock, they still hadn’t found her or even had an idea of where she might have been, until Spencer had an epiphany. “Wait!” he said, stilling everyone’s movements in the room. “He said, ‘hurry up, or she’ll end up like the last one.’ What if she’s in the warehouse where Maeve died. If I’m too late then I’ll have lost two of the women I love in there and that would break me. He knows it.” Everyone looked at Spencer with pity; he couldn’t do this again.

“Let’s go,” Hotch said. He was certain they had the right place.

————–

Nearly ten minutes later, they’d arrived at the warehouse. As they entered, Spencer insisted they keep an eye out for traps of any kind. “He said for me to come alone. Now, I can’t tell if that was because he didn’t expect we’d figure him out so quickly or what, but he threatened you all too, so keep an eye out.”

Slowly but carefully, they made their way through the cold halls of the warehouse. He knew it wasn’t possible, but Spencer was convinced it was frigid in here - probably the memories of last time coming back to haunt him; that time he’d been too late.

“Watch,” he said, stepping over the trip wire on the floor. It had been rigged up to something, a gun in the wall from Spencer’s estimation. Almost every few feet there was another one. “We have to alert bomb squad,” Hotch said. 

As they turned the corner into the room where Maeve died, Spencer saw a giant box filled with dirt. Without thinking, he ran around the room looking for something to break open the container. “Here!” Blake said, throwing him a leaden pipe. With all of the force he could muster, Spencer reeled back and made impact with what turned out to be glass. 

“Hurry!” he said, clawing at the dirt as fast as he possibly could. Everyone followed suit, digging through as they screamed her name; there had been no reply. Just then, JJ hit her hands on something.

It was a coffin.

When he opened the box, there she was. Her eyes were closed. It took everything in him to check for a pulse. “Ahhhh,” she gasped as his fingers touched her neck. “No! No, get away from me!” She started flailing, not knowing where she was.

“Y/N it’s me!” he cried. “It’s Spencer.”

“Spence,” she questioned, opening her eyes. “Oh my god.”

Gently, he lifted her out of the box, brushing the dirt from her hair as he laid her on the floor. “The ambulance is going to be here soon.” She sobbed into his shoulders as he held her close. “It’s going to be okay. I promise, Y/N. You’re going to be okay.”

“Thank you,” he mouthed to the team as tears streamed down his face, his girlfriend shaking in his arms. “Thank you so much.” As she looked up into his eyes, he wondered if there was ever going to be a way he could adequately thank his friends. She was alive, which meant he could keep on living too.


End file.
